Navigating High-Volume Hiring Events In A Candidate-Driven Market

By Jeanette Maister

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Setting your company apart when it comes to high-volume recruiting is crucial. In a candidate-driven market, it’s important to position your recruiting team for success by giving them the tools and metrics they need.

Learn how to navigate the biggest recruiting events with these simple directions.

Communicate with candidates

It’s easy to get caught up in the number of qualified candidates at an event. While it’s great there are so many people for your recruiters to talk to, you need to have a plan in place for them to communicate effectively with the candidates. Having a plan in place before an event will keep candidates engaged with your company during and long after the event is over.

Create a plan

If the event your recruiters are going to has a registrant communication hub, it will be easy for them to keep in contact after and during the event. If your business is hosting a high-volume recruiting event, having a communication hub is important to ensuring everyone attending your event has a memorable and easy experience.

Use the communication hub to contact registrants before the event has started, during the event and after the event to fully engage candidates. Contacting them before an event lets them know you’re interested. After they approach your booth or stand, you can send them a quick thank you message and let them know you’ll be contacting them after the event with next steps.

Communicate the process

Don’t leave your candidates in the dark. Let them know exactly what is going to happen at every step of the process. If they hand you a resume or contact information, you should be able to tell them where their information is going.

Work with your recruiting team so everyone is on the same page about the next steps of the process. Will they be hearing back immediately after? Will it be through text, email or phone call? These are all important questions in making sure the process is transparent.

Get your team prepped

Give your team the tools for success. Make sure your recruiters are on the same page when it comes to company goals and what qualities you need to fill those goals. You need to do research before the event to see which tools you’ll need and what type of candidates usually go.

If the event gives you some tools, help your recruiters go through them to get the information they need and ensure they know how to operate them. Better yet, give your recruiters tools developed for your business. Having a mobile app or software to sort CVs or resumes will be more tidy and less confusing during an event.

Having snapshots of CVs or resumes reduces clutter and keeps everything in one place while mobile apps help get everything your recruiters need in the palm of their hand.

Use event metrics

Before an event, establish your organization hiring event metrics and align these with your recruiter’s strategic plans. Everyone should be on the same page as to what you’re looking for and how they’re going to talk to candidates.

Answer these questions before an event:

What is your strategic goal? Do you want to reduce sourcing time? Hire X number of people?

What is your execution strategy? How are you going to be successful at the event?

What measurable metric are you going to be using? (i.e. Increase passive candidate pipeline by 60% by end of the year.)

Find shortcuts

If you’re going to a high-volume event, you’re going because you need a lot of people. It’s important to manage your time while you’re there to get the most out of the people you meet.

Use the tools both available to you at your business and those provided by the event host. Anything to help better communicate with candidates and get the most out of your high-volume event is crucial.

Some shortcuts in your high volume hiring include:

Mobile App can help recruiters get ready by storing candidate information in one place. Some events might have an app that can be easily downloaded so your recruiters know where they need to be throughout the event.

Registrant Communication should be at the top of your mind throughout the event. Communication with candidates should be a fairly similar experience for any candidate you’re talking to.

Company Culture should be promoted first and foremost at events. This is what brings candidates to your table and what keeps them engaged when the event is over. Share with candidates what makes you great.

High-volume recruiting events are prime opportunities to get candidates interested and hire talent fast. But, navigating them can be difficult for a lot of businesses.

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